Wonder material even stronger then diamond.

WASHINGTON — Imagine a carbon sheet that's only one atom thick but is stronger than diamond and conducts electricity 100 times faster than the silicon in computer chips.

That's graphene, the latest wonder material coming out of science laboratories around the world. It's creating tremendous buzz among physicists, chemists and electronic engineers.

"It is the thinnest known material in the universe, and the strongest ever measured," Andre Geim , a physicist at the University of Manchester, England , wrote in the June 19 issue of the journal Science.

"A few grams could cover a football field," said Rod Ruoff , a graphene researcher at the University of Texas, Austin , in an e-mail. A gram is about 1/30th of an ounce."

wonder material

Epitaxial Graphene Lab

Technoligy Review




[edit on 9-7-2009 by USMC-oorah]

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[edit on Thu Jul 9 2009 by Jbird]

Cool stuff, thanks for the post. It gives me something else to research.

I have played with carbon fiber and I was already amazed by it, wonder what they could make with this stuff.

Originally posted by whoshotJR
Cool stuff, thanks for the post. It gives me something else to research.

I have played with carbon fiber and I was already amazed by it, wonder what they could make with this stuff.

I was wondering about potential body armor applications. I don't know if that's a possibility or, even a viable question.

reply to post by USMC-oorah


It would be interesting to see how its strength holds up to impacts. I think its talking more about tensile strength then the ability to take a bullet but who knows.

It could open up a world of transportation possibilities because it is probably much lighter and stronger the current materials. With much less weight it would require much less force to power the vehicle or plane. I wonder how it will do with heat fluctuation.

Originally posted by whoshotJR
reply to post by USMC-oorah

 

It would be interesting to see how its strength holds up to impacts. I think its talking more about tensile strength then the ability to take a bullet but who knows.

It could open up a world of transportation possibilities because it is probably much lighter and stronger the current materials. With much less weight it would require much less force to power the vehicle or plane. I wonder how it will do with heat fluctuation.

That's what I was thinking as well. Probably not the same sort of strength as body armor materials. The material seems easily producable. Eventually it could replace silicone.

Carbon nanotubes have several problems: one, it is very difficult to put them exactly where you want to. Second, it’s quite difficult to connect to them – to wire them up. Those are the two major hurdles with carbon nanotubes. Also, you don’t treat them like you do silicon. When you do nanotube electronics, it’s an entirely different set of processing steps that you use compared with silicon. If you work with graphitic materials – graphene – on the surface of silicon carbide, you can use all the common steps now used in the processing of silicon to make electronic devices, but on a much finer scale than what is possible with silicon. You can break the barrier that silicon is facing, going all the way down to the nanoscale, at which silicon breaks down—you can’t use silicon when it’s made that small for a whole variety of reasons. So you have all the advantages of graphitic materials, which are extremely robust and strong materials, and you avoid several of the disadvantages of silicon. That is really the main motivation for all of this. It piggybacks completely on the carbon nanotube electronics paradigm, but simply opens up the nanotubes – making them flat so that you can do things that you could never do with nanotubes

seems like it has many interesting applications. This could lead to much faster computers, or maybe even super - sophisticated artificial mechanical organs. Who knows this stuff might be in the first cyborg human in the near future

great find SnF

reply to post by USMC-oorah


Surprising, when I first researched this material, they weren't discussing the strength qualities but rather the electronic properties.

wow that's pretty cool.

the possibilities are really endless.


unfortunately i am sure it will be used more in military applications then civilian ones

This is the second thread today on this subject, there is another good one here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by USMC-oorah


Just a quick note, not to derail or anything but Graphene has been in and out of the news for about 3 or 4 years now.

Moving towards a graphene world (19 July 2006)
www.nature.com...

Graphene: the magic carpet made of carbon (Apr 06, 2006)
www.hindu.com...

nothing new per say

when i first read this on the cfront page of yahoo this AM, all i could think about was the discription they gave about the piece of "tin foil" that was found in the roswel wreckage.

could this be the same stuff from then? and we are just hearing about it now?

or 2006 from the post of i think it was warrenb?

Originally posted by USMC-oorah
Eventually it could replace silicone.

Somehow "Graphene Alley" doesnt have the same ring to it as 'Silicone valley' lol